Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies

Hans Holbein’s (hostile) depiction of Thomas Cromwell

Dear friends and readers,

I attempt to capture something of the experience I have just had with a group of people at an Oscher Institute of Lifelong Learning (attached to George Mason). We read and discussed carefully Mantel’s two novels as providing us with a fresh angle on the Tudor Matter. Tudor matter includes all that happened, all that can be connected to people influenced by and influencing a family tree of Tudors, from the time of the ascension of Henry Tudor (1485-1509) to the English throne (also 1485) to the death of his son, Henry VIII’s third child, Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth (born 1533, died 1603).

In this case Mantel writes the kind of historical fiction which uses actual historical people for all its characters, remains faithful to what is historically documented as having happened while the novelist, like the historian, has a duty to realize the living experience and interpret the significance small and large of each event or character. Mantel presented a point of view so persuasive and well-supported that her book is now influencing the way historians as well as countless others evaluate Thomas Cromwell. The two books are labelled “the Thomas Cromwell trilogy,” though the third does not exist as yet (at least not as a finished published book) and will make up a fictionalized biography: all three will cover the years from Cromwell’s birth (said to be 1485) to execution (1540).

Mark Rylance as Cromwell

She was also an active spirit in Peter Straughan’s six part TV serial drama (2015) and Mike Poulton’s stage play (2012). I read aloud Mantel’s character descriptions at the beginning of the play text.

Ben Miles as Cromwell

It was important not to omit movies as the Tudor matter for many consists of movies. At the beginning of each session I’d play 3 clips from the 2015 Wolf Hall, for the 2nd through 7th session. Since (as in the case of Arthurian matter or the classical Greek and Roman stories) includes many others takes, I included the two books that constitute the powerful originating sources of Mantel’s: Robert Bolt’s play A Man for all Seasons, Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, and at the opening of our 8th session I played 4 clips from 2 movies made therefrom: Zinneman’s 1966 movie, A Man for All Seasons with Paul Scofield and Robert Shaw as man and master, Wendy Hiller as Alice; the highly original inward (daring) Philippa Lowthorpe’s 2003 BBC Other Boleyn Girl, with Jodhi May as Anne and Stephen Mackintosh as George Boleyn (central to the interpretation that finds Anne and George incestuous in a desperate attempt to produce an apparently legitimate son for Henry). I showed 2 very brief and a bit of the feature (with Philippa Gregory) of commercially successful Columbia 2008 Other Boleyn Girl (by the ubiquitous Peter Morgan, whose 2003 serial drama Henry VIII, with Ray Winstone, I also went over but could not show as I have only a Region 2 copy), remarkable for its depiction of strong women everywhere who are nonetheless forced to submit. Let’s gaze at those moments and characters less paid attention to:

Wendy Hiller bitterly telling More awaiting his death in prison as she awaits hers in poverty outside: “I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of: that when you’ve gone I shall hate you for it.”

Jodhi May as Anne Boleyn exiled to Hever for a year to bend her to comply with her father and uncle’s demands she serve the family interests first (2003)

Kirstin Scott Thomas as Elizabeth Boleyn, coerced not willingly into selling all three of her children, realizing two are going to be beheaded (2008)

So what we did was have themes we drew out from the books alongside talking of them section-by-section: I lectured on real early modern women I’ve studied (and translated) and what we know about Anne and Mary Boleyn (and a few other supporting characters so-to-speak, as Jane Boleyn, Catherine of Aragon, Margaret More, fast forwarding to Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. A guarded bunch, easily rendered powerless, who left few papers, and most of those self- or other-censored. We talked about the spread of a religious movement across all classes which would satisfy people’s inner needs for self-understanding as well as justification, a matter of increasingly secular identity and conscience. Then there was how the political world worked. Finally, the fluid sexuality of the era. Mantel’s two books support such discussions, if you just extrapolate out (not too far) into the real world outside the book that the book continually has reference to. Mantel’s history fiction functions like life-writing, which does not begin to end at any book’s first and last pages. We don’t know all we can know about a character who lived from any single book. Many questions, all sorts we hashed out. I sent two articles a week (three by Hilary Mantel who is a witty essayist), and recommended and brought in biographies (scroll down).

One cannot yet explicate the structure of a work that is only (at best) 2/3s done. The central climactic tragedy, the execution of Anne, who is stealth heroine, is realized at length in the penultimate pages of Bring Up the Bodies, hard upon the interrogations by Cromwell of the five executed men, and Anne and George’s trials. What one notices is that at the close of Wolf Hall, the execution of More occurs off-stage; on-stage is Cromwell’s perhaps psychosomatic illness (or it’s from exhaustion) and the thematic clashes and dialogues, whole history of the rivalry (unknown to More until late in life) of More and Cromwell’s outlook on life and behavior begins only in the third book of Wolf Hall. Six parts; each section has a tripartite structure (3 chapters) of opening, long center, and brief coda.

Parts One & Two:

Fathers and sons: Across the narrow sea: Cromwell fleeing his violent father, at first rescued by his sister, Kat Williams; then on his own; Paternity: Cromwell’s relationship with Wolsey as true father and the problem of Henry’s lack of a legitimate son and demand Wolsey enable him to marry Anne Boleyn; Austin Friars: a good world he and his beloved wife, Liz, create together.

Natasha Little as Liz Cromwell who will haunt Cromwell ever

Visitation: The Downfall of the Cardinal, with all the powerful men who bring this about; Occult History; in the context of mythic to long past to immediate history of Britain as acted out by some of our central characters (we meet Mary and Anne Boleyn, the male courtiers including Henry Percy, and Cromwell’s pasts, in Italy, Antwerp, the death of his beloved wife, daughters, the coming of Rafe, in England Buonvisi as neighbor, first clashes with More; Make or Mar: Cromwell grieving with Cavendish, chooses to stay loyal to his master as a way to make or mar himself.

Cromwell’s household: We glimpse from the back Josh Porter as Richard [Williams] Cromwell, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as the invaluable Rafe, Saskia Reeves as his beloved sisterin-law, lover Johanne

Parts Three and Four:

Three-Card Trick: Mantel tracks time carefully, backwards again (circular structure typical of l’ecriture-femme: Wolsey at Esher, now Cromwell must get into Parliament, interact with ambassadors, cope with Henry, visit More himself; Entirely Beloved Cromwell: Christmas w/o wife and daughter; 1513 when Henry spent hugely stupidly killing all for nothing, Cromwell’s protest (the other side of Flodden Field); now caring for Cardinal under whose bed a kitten, Marlinspike, born; more of Gregory, his son, entirely beloved, the rise of Anne Boleyn is presented secondarily, we don’t see her that; we see her sister, Mary more; The Dead Complain of Their Burial: Christmas tide, 1530, King’s nightmare transformed by Cromwell’s allegoresis

Jonathan Pryce as the Cardinal, tucked into bed by Cromwell, praying for him — the ghosts accumulate

Arrange your face; “Alas, what shall I do for love?”;: profoundly dangerous time, he has to give up Johanne; court life, Anne people must say whatever will keep them alive, Mary’s role, her retreat, individuals acting out religious clashes, torture, execution; Chapuys emerges as emperor’s man, Catholic. The center of book a graphic depiction of the burning of an old Lollard woman witnessed by Cromwell as a young boy. Early Mass: Henry has fucked Anne and they are bethrothed

Joanna Whalley as rigidly catholic queen, Lily Lesser as her daughter, Mary Tudor, twisted, deeply in need

What was the appeal of this Protestantism? It appealed deeply to powerless men with whom women belong as a category, to servants, and it spread. It is often talked about in the most inadequate ways; one group says you saved by faith, Christ’s self-immolation paid for your sin, God has predestined you, so need to sit and feel intensely fearful you are going to go to hell if you have had a conversion experience: truly feel God in your heart. Other group says well what kind of God is that to damn so many people, and also say you need not perform good works, need not be public in church (where of course you can be controlled), just you and God and the book.

Going to reach for text some of you read with me, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, in the last part Margaret gets depressed and few will remember what book helps her after both father and mother are dead: it’s quoted at length in the text in French St Francis de Sales, “An introduction to the devoted or religious life.” Margaret finds much comfort in it. It’s translated in the back of those books with notes. Others did not want to look, wanted certainty of people saying your works would secure you, of authority figures

Before the 20th century if you were feeling terrible about yourself or your life there was no secular psychology free of blame to go to; and what these protestant re-tellings did was provide a way of thinking that absolved you. In this particular one Margaret reads how she should not “die of shame” because of what’s she done,” she has fallen into a pit,” but she can rise up if she thinks about what happened another way and realizes compassion and mercy are there. No blaming, no need to do anything for which you need power. Women began to write poetry in the 16th century and it was by an large paraphrases of the psalms or religious texts where they rewrote them in personal veins. Johane can be stopped from her love affair by her mother. A great deal of infamy was heaped on people over sex – that was part of Henry’s problem. There is good evidence to suggest – all you are ever going to have – that Anne Boleyn and Thomas Percy went through one of these informal bethrothals as did Anne Boleyn and the king and then she and Percy consummated.

Who were the kind of men who wrote this sort of thing? Thomas Kempis’s Imitation of Christ was huge continual re-translated best-seller for centuries; another one I’ve read is the Spanish so-called mystic, Juan de Valdes – Vittoria Colonna reread Juan de Valdes, Beneficio di Cristo obsessively. Methodism in the later 18th century show the intersection with power because they tried to throw off local landlords from choosing their vicars. Didn’t the rich and powerful in pews in the church.

Bainam burnt at the stake:

Parts Five and Six

Anna Regina and Devil’s Spit: women brought in: Helen Barre; Cranmer and Margarete the parallel; the half-mad Elizabeth Barton’s story, Anne as vulnerable woman by about half-way. Women doubles, surrogates, parallels; each reveals sides of man or men she is involved with. Cromwell’s kindness. Jane Boleyn emerges. Overriding mood is still paranoia: from enemies to crazy nun, all the reform depends on Anne who grows delusional and now wants daughter on throne. Rafe begins to emerge more. Painter’s Eye: Hans Holbein’s portrait. A theme:

An hour-long filmn Hans Holbein recommended by someone in the class; the speaker, an art historian named Waldemar Januszczak, art correspondent for the London Times, a controversial figure, often very provocative, who uses Holbein’s portrait of Thomas Cromwell to attack Hilary Mantel’s portrait of Cromwell on the grounds he looks like a murderer. I showed them a portrait of Cromwell where he does not look like a murderer. Holbein is tremendously arresting. We believe in his portraits. But Januszczak provides ammunition against his own thesis. He makes fun of Holbein’s imposing peacock, ever so tall and wide – Damien Lewis is hard put to look huge but does his best to strut. Why is Holbein’s portrait to be taken as gospel. Januszczak shows us Holbein came from Catholic people, he made many Madonnas, in fact he painted his own wife looking like a miserable madonna with two children.I suggest HOlbein’s portraits are catholic propaganda on behalf of More and against Cromwell. If you look at the portraits of Mary Boleyn as opposed to the one done by Holbein and thought to be her, they fit better. Juszcaak had a Holbein drawing of Anne Boleyn he says is her I’ve never seen and it looked convincing more convincing that that stiff woman in black we are often shown. Holbein could paint remarkable faces but that does not mean he is on oath –- he is like a modern camera or painter who can impose a view.

Partners: Rylance as More; Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn

Supremacy; A Map of Christendom: A rewrite of Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, to the point where speeches that Bolt plucked out of the historical records are re-plucked but uttered in contexts that reverse or at least significantly alter their significance. Cromwell attempts to persuade, with Cranmore uttering the same rationalities; in Mantel it is Rich who engineers More’s downfall along with his own scorn of Rich; from More salivating over torturing someone, through dialogue and the burning and torture of other Protestants we are led to see More as the harmful fanatic. More’s utterance near the end that he has wished and done no man harm and if that cannot keep him alive, he’d rather not live (rendered famously by Scofield on the scaffolld), is answered here by Cromwell as they sit over a table by a list of people that Cromwell cites whom More has destroyed viciously. In the final scene of More’s beheading, in Mantel and Straughan there is only the pathos of a wretched narrow man; in Mantel she has it happen off-stage and in the text we see Cromwell’s illness, his family all about him.Theme: how did power work?

Anton Lesser as More refusing to sign

Was it the king acting alone and at the center with aristocrats obeying him; or King-in-Parliament and factions vying for power. The latter seems far more accurate. Ordinary courts of justice were about property, property rights and it could be within a family or companies over contracts. Gov’t would go to court over taking people’s property – as Cromwell did when he dissolved the monasteries and nunneries. Or some act of violence. Anyone could bring a charge or ask prosecutor to bring a charge. You did not have the right to a lawyer or to speak in your own defense. All this came later. Women has no rights in such places as suitors but they could be accused. Parishes went to court to kick people out and control them. Short prison sentences. Wretched places where you were expected to provide for your own keep. Disease sites. Different courts for different purposes, and very powerful were the church courts. Your right to life, liberty and property is a later 17th century idea. Locally the JP or magistrate appointed by JP. Movement from king all powerful with henchmen aristocrats with castles and liege men in armies to whole change in fabric of society as commerce, capitalism, changes in agriculture occur. King did not control the people and land during
feudalism, power was local, and if you wanted power far away, you had to control through other people — life built on sales and money, middling people feared chaos and wanted security, peace, stability. Strong authority emotionally for most people began with parents and older relatives. Boys sent to train as pages or out to work after initial schoolroom; girls educated at home to read and to do accounts; Renaissance added history, languages, sewing. Lower class girls put into service, cook and sew and clean. Bible spread reading; 1566 Great Bishop’s Bible commissioned by Elizabeth I. Two agricultural recessions: 1530s and 1590s; on the whole period of expansion due to trade and cloth and what destroyed ordinary people was enclosure movements. Henry a strikingly volatile psychopath emerged from an educated young prince gradually. Enormously overweight. Domineering grandmother, neglected by father.

To Wolf Hall. Jane Seymour; Seymours replacing Boleyns. Over course of these three Cromwell becoming a darker harder figure.

Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour; contemporary portrait of Jane Seymour

Elizabeth I probably the victim of sexual harassment and abuse from Thomas Seymour during the time she was growing up in Katherine Parr’s household. It will come as no surprise she was interrogated and blamed as seeking to marry him and overthrow her sister. This early trauma from which Parr could not protect her could be linked to her decided uneagerness for a man; but it was also political. To marry would have been to take a master.

We did Bring Up the Bodies much more rapidly; in the film covered by Parts Five and Six.

Purefoy a cynosure for Anne

Falcons; Crows; Angels: Opens with display of falcons, birds who are fierce, vultures, turned into abject enslaved creatures, named after his daughters and wife. Kimbolton is where Katherine of Aragon is staying, Cromwell visits this dying woman and stays at a lodging house where he sleeps with the wife and thinks of doing away with her husband. Stepney and Greenwich, Christmas in Cromwell’s new household, with young men married, new children about him. He no longer is compassionate figure; less wit but still there: for Jane Seymour men “an unpleasant surprise.” Displaced by drive to manipulate, fierce anger at men, ambition to re-organize the world; Henry’s fierce anger at Cromwell (at Chapuys).

Jessica Raine as Jane Parker Boleyn, Lady Rochford (2015 Wolf Hall); we read Mantel’s witty essay suggesting yes Jane Parker’s evidence was sinister

Black Book: Anne has one last late miscarriage; the one called a monster and now she a witch, or because (as Jane Rochford and others had it, it was the child of an incestuous union). Retha Warnke in her historical biography offers the idea that the child was carried beyond quickening but then something was wrong with it (spina bifida?). Something wrong with Henry, or a mismatch of blood types.

Her dog killed; rumors rife as others begin to accuse Anne of sexual unfaithfulness. Closing in. Master of Phantoms: One member of Anne’s circle after another, first the women frightened, easily gotten to talk; then Jane Boleyn’s role, Smeaton’s stupid boasting; the ceaseless interrogations, the final trial, Anne and George and the execution. Spoils, London, summer 1536: divvying up the plums

How did we end? I gave Philippa Gregory full credit for being the first to develop new characters, a new perspective from Mary Boleyn on. Mantel picked up from that and Mary Robertson’s work on Cromwell, Cavendish’s great biography of Wolsey. We discussed the mystery of Henry VIII’s character and I told of Morgan’s take on him, and Ray Winstone’s performance.

Finally, I used Jessica Jernigan’s review in The Women’s Review of Books: Bring Up the Bodies filled with ghosts and monsters. I still love the style: it’s plainer and more popular or demotic than Wolf Hall but still a strong sardonic irony and use of concrete popular language as metaphor persists. In Wolf Hall Cromwell was also a fond husband, kind master, against the worst excesses of power, kindly easy to like; not this man whose virtues now are given a sinister cast as they are used to murder 6 people. His own evil twin meting out revenge. Protecting himself. Jernigan also brings in Mantel’s other novels. As with Larissa MacFarland whose New Yorker article I gave out, Jernigan sees an obsession with another world outside the probable sane one. We saw Cromwell fighting a blighted life and now? Jernigan singles out passages where she says that tricky “he” is not Cromwell any more; there creeps in an “us” – as with Susan Sontag’s Volcano Lover, we the readers and Mantel herself are emerge from behind Cromwell and Henry. Perhaps in her third book we will move to continuity between present and past too:

Already you can feel the autumn. You know there cannot be many more days like these; so let us stand, the horseboys of Wolf Hall swarming around us, Wiltshire and the western country, stretching into a haze of blue – she wants us to feel the alders by the water’s edge, the early haze that lifted by nine; the brief shower, the small wind that died and settled; the stillness, the afternoon heat …

Ellen